I think the main problem with people new to investing is that they think you only have to buy 1-2 boxes of one particular set, sit on it for 6 months and expect an easy 500% return. This video did an excellent job at showcasing that cost bases, acquisition routes, diversifying your position, time and scale - all play a vital role in proper investing, resulting in actual profit. Yes, there's always a chance that in X years these boxes will become worthless, but there's also a chance that in X years a meteor will flatten us all. Risk is part of the game and absolutely nothing in life is Guaranteed™.
At the moment all I can afford to do is have one box sealed sitting. But that's fine by me. When I get to the point where I can get more, I plan on it. This video is great proof that even having one sealed box is a solid ROI, if you're patient.
Also very important to accept the worst case downside when you make your purchase or investment decision. Returns are great but sleeping at night is priceless. If they all go to 0 then I consider myself the proud owner of years worth of booster draft nights with my friends, and fun pack openings on TH-cam!
Michael, I think if we could go back with all this foreknowledge we still wouldn't believe ourselves. I'm mean a modern game card that could be reprinted at any time valued into the tens of thousands of dollars?? It is too fantastic to consider. I still find it almost impossible to believe even now. A guy offered $50 for my friend's Black Lotus in March of 94 and we both thought he was crazy to want to pay so much for a card.
Once someone of reasonably high intellect knows enough about anything, they're generally able to reason out a range of probable future outcomes with relative accuracy because they see past the 1st, 2nd and 3rd order of consequences or beyond of the data they have with the knowledge they have. And when I say intelligent, I don't mean educated. I'm not sure of Rudy's education level, but if he has higher education, it's because he needed it to get his foot in the door in his previous career. He's intelligent in spite of his higher education if he has it and would have been successful regardless because of his intellect and work ethic.
3/2022... 2.5 years after this video and it has aged well. We have gone through a MTG value surge and now it is pulling back but damn.. everything in this video has held true. Even dumpster-fire Ixalan sealed boxes are at $160. There is a whole 1 card in the set that might fetch more than $20 but the sealed box continues to appreciate. Rudy, you are a got-damn genius.
I'm a sealed Magic investor, but there is a very real problem with it, especially dealing with newer sets. Yes, eventually the prices go up as available inventory dries up, and eventually it will become attractive to start moving your boxes after 5-6 years and your Dominaria boxes have reached $400... but then the 100s of other sealed investors see the opportunity as well, and they start trying to sell them too, but the market is simply too small for sealed Core 2019, GoR, Rivals, and even Dominaria. Then, as more product is suddenly available, the few dozen people who wanted it are satisfied, and to sell more you need to drop your prices, because you're also competing against all the other sellers too. So you must decide; drop to $350, or even $300, or wait for another year, or two, or three. I'm just not sure that current or even Bronze Age MTG is going to ever be like holding Golden or Silver Age sealed boxes, now that there's a plan and so many are in on it. For instance, I did see Amonkhet boxes climb to $300 briefly, and then 20+ sellers came out of the woodwork and the price dove down to $240 after a half a dozen boxes sold. There's a lot out there, I personally have 16 cases, but I also own a shop and do sell them, both by the case and the pack, and I can just slowly move them. It's fine for me, but online it's a different situation, and the hold time to fully realize the returns you envision could (and likely will) be longer than you imagined. But hey, I could be wrong, I'll admit it.
If you list higher than everyone else, it might sit there longer, but you made more per unit than the people undercutting you. The supply is finite and you hold a higher market share for everyone who sells early or cracks it.
Great video, the only thing that would concern me about owning huge numbers of boxes is liquidating them though. It's not easy for the average person to be storing/liquidating hundreds of boxes. Shipping them out one by one or even a few at a time would be a hell of a lot of work on top of that. Can't argue with those gains though.
Thank you for the video Rudy. A good job showing a reasonable cost basis of $81. But how did you not factor in the risk free rate for years that have past? At 3% BFZ is actually an adjusted cost basis of $90-$95. Not everyone factors in the risk free rate, or an even higher borrowing rate, but you have to if you want actual costs and profits. A few real world corrections to just the Ixalan example that can be applied to most of the boxes discussed (full disclosure, I am in Corporate Finance and my license is active): 1) Booster boxes of Ixalan are all over Facebook for $80-85 right now. You only have to buy 1-2 to get that price. 2) Or if you use Card Kingdom's buylist, which is easy to find eBay cards for a profit, you get +30% and the booster box is $90 per. Let's round that to $70 before tax and shipping if applicable. Shipping is only $10 for me, but assuming further away might be $15... again, with store credit that is only $12... so $82 real world money if you use the buylist and less if you buy multiple boxes, as shipping per will decrease. 3) Boxes of Ixalan are up to $95 on eBay right now because of the 6% and 10% bonus eBay bucks that have been active over the past week or so. Meaning without these bonus bucks, the price should be around $85-$90 on eBay at best. 4) Also, unless you are shipping a ton at a time or have a corporate shipping account, most of us can't get out of shipping and fees for under $15... eBay alone is $10%, PayPal 3-4%, and shipping is $5-10. So costs for most people should be more like $20, not $10 lol. 5) Also, fees are usually a % and shipping will go up, and there is 3-4% inflation that should be factored in as money today is worth more than money in the future, so $10 for shipping and fees in 2-3 years is really stretching the truth. It would be more realistic to be $30 in fees and shipping for the Ixalan box. 6) Rudy is speaking from his perspective, not the 95% of sealed speculators/investors. 7) If you are a Patreon customer that purchases through Rudy, you have to factor in your monthly subscription into your base costs. 8) Investing in sealed product can be good, but you have to be realistic about it.
@@7Alberto7 I really enjoy Rudy's content and love watching his videos. Some of the information he gives is very skewed from a financial perspective. I just hope viewers get informed before they invest/speculate on MTG.
@@vaderwashere365 me too that's why i hope to read more about your reply,also thank you for make this and let us have another point of view about this topic👍
Would be nice to see a quantitative analysis for yearly returns looking at all sets going back 5 (or more years). If you used your more realistic numbers, what would the rates of return for the 4 examples Rudy discussed actually be?
@@ChipHunter3 Yeah, I think you can def make close to the returns Rudy discusses, but you would have to get volume discounts at purchase and warehouse 100s of boxes from each set. So I wouldn't know storage costs as those vary widely by geography. Then you have to figure out how to slowly move 100s of boxes without flooding any of the marketplaces. Most of us might hold a few boxes or a case or two. Also, depends on how many you ship per sale... did some one buy a case from you with no price discount (highly unlikely)? So if shipping 1-2 boxes per sale, I don't think you make a profit on $81 Ixalan at release, that really costs you $90-95 at time of sale in 2021, unless you can get $115 per box without prices being skewed by a 6-10% ebay bucks promotion. With shipping and fees (~$15-20 per box), that is just above break even. That is only vanilla sets like Ixalan, you can make more profit if you would have preordered Ultimate Masters, Battlebond, Conspiracy 2, or a set doesn't sell well and gets popular (Innistrad) or something like that. That will bring up your average if investing similarly in every set. So still a good alternative investment, but hard to recommend an unregulated investment before you have protected investments. Even if you don't trust the government, they are semi-protected and probably a safer bet than WotC/Hasbro and the MTG marketplace. Edit: I only buy a few boxes to a case of every set, because I actually draft with friends. I hardly get to draft more than a box or three of a set b/c of all the releases over the past 3 years. I have tried selling sealed product that I haven't been able to open from new-10 years old. I usually have to sell at eBay/TCGplayer prices less 10% to sell locally and avoid fees and shipping. It is almost easier to sell the newest release or two than a 3-7 year old booster box (more niche than Rudy talks about). I see tons of Facebook marketplace posts for older booster boxes at 10% below eBay/TCG prices that just get reposted over and over. Again, this is all a hobby for me, but it has been easier to collect, store and sell singles than sealed product to make the same profit %.
Great video. Only things I would change or add is: 1) build in 15% loss on avg on under 200 sales on ebay/paypal, 2) storage space and costs are not free... people really overlook the latter. Storing 100s or 1000s of boxes is no small feat, ask me how I know. Its not as bad as collector cars, but I would say harder than bullion. Again ask me how I know!
This, your mom isn't going to let you store 1000 magic boxes in your room because someone on TH-cam told you to invest in magic cards lol, for little kids who don't understand still...I bought shares of Ford the car company in college because it was cheap, it had a 8% dividend on it, I made all the money back I paid for the shares so they were "free" and I'm now making money on it, every 3 months I get money in my bank account just a few hundred bucks deposited
Hey Rudy! I’m really curious how you would expect the average seller with several hundred boxes to only lose around 10% in sales fees/shipping! If I sell on eBay... eBay takes 10% and PayPal takes 3%. And shipping costs there as well! I’ve found when I’m selling something I have to expect to lose closer to 15-20%!
I really like this video. The one thing I have to call out is Rudy’s estimate for “selling fees”. I don’t know of any online selling site that charges a flat selling fee. eBay is 10% plus 2.7% for payment processing. Same with TCGplayer. That $19 for a $150 box. Plus another $8-12 for shipping. These really cut into profit.
Literally addressed in the video with a qualifying statement a few times. In future try listening before you speak rather than just waiting for your turn to talk.
thedarkness125 Thanks for your $.02 10 months later buddy. I did watch the video and he barely mentioned it off hand. Rudy is well known for over/under stating numbers to fit his needs. Next time save yourself the trouble and don’t bother commenting.
Thanks for helping me make money. I keep goin further back in your videos and as you said in this one- "in 2021 Ixalan should be around 125." Well they're 140 lol.
MTG started going up when you opened your channel because you make people think it's an investment and they want to be like you and not a timmy..... My hat is off to you sir
So in all seriousness, how do you make the money to spend to buy new product? Are you slowly selling a small percentage of the older boxes saved up, years down the road? Are you just keeping it all and using another business (card shop?) to make all your investment purchases? What's your guiding principle for how much to sell, and when, to keep reinvesting?
Update from the future of February 2022, TCGPlayer prices. Jeez you pre 2020 people are in for some shit. But hey, that's the fun right. Origins: 21 listings, $99.99 Eldritch: 25 listings, $169.99 (giggity. Note that only 4 boxes are for that price, then it jumps to 10 with the rest) BFZ: 19 listings, $214.49 Ixalan: 22 listings, $149.99 I had bought a box of BFZ and Eldritch Moon for $80 from rudy. Doubled my money. Was nice. Maybe I should've waited and gotten more? Oh well. No shame in locking in profits right? Good luck everybody and stay the course.
Great video watched the whole thing really appreciate all the numbers being laid out to show the different sets returns over the course of years, somtimes its hard to picture the long long term
If a person can afford it buy two boxes of each set. plus some single cards of each set as it comes .out singles to use, one box to save ,and one box to open half the packs out of
Would be nice to see a quantitative analysis for yearly returns looking at all sets going back 5 (or more years). Any of you subs out there think you could do that?
It would be interesting to see that. How about a comparison of an avg Timmy buying one box per month for the past 5 years from an online shop or lgs VS the same purchasing via Rudy patreon? The avg Timmy wont or cannot join the patreon.
@@Scorch428 Lowest is 180/year. I would think of the patreon sub like a call option. It gives you the right to buy up to 6 boxes at 79.99 each/per month. It would not make much sense to spend that much per month if you have no intention in buying at least one box a month.
@@Scorch428 Ya I agree. The patreon sub is for those who are committed to buying quite a few each and every month. The sub mostly likely gives you access to sets that are not available through other sites at the 79.99 price too so that is a plus. Im not located in the US otherwise I would do it.
Hey Rudy, I was lucky to get a single piece of power - a mox ruby. I have had it for over a year now and it’s increased in price quite a bit. I traded my storm legacy deck for it, and only did so because no one played legacy at the LGS’s I went to. However, I recently moved. I lost all of my casual fun decks bc of UPS and I’m still going through the claims process. Luckily I kept my lottery cards/reserved list/power with me at all times. I was very upset and nearly let go of my collection because of silly emotions. I got lucky again when I stopped myself from selling out. I started watching your vids again and it helped me keep my head in the game for the long term. I hope to get married in a few years, and I hope my power/reserved list portfolio will help with a ring hahaha. I don’t plan on investing or speculating on cards, but I’m happy your advice and guidance kept me from making a mistake.
Its 2022 and I found this video because of some questions and searching. I got into Magic again back in the Avacyn Restored block. I was buying boxes of AR at my LGS for around $120 a box. EIGHT years later and the cheapest I can find is around $788!!!! Insane!!! I wish I had bought so many more.
The problem with this is that investing in liquid markets is so much less time and effort consuming than investing in sealed product. My dividend income portfolio takes about 1 hr of my time a week, yields %6.63 anually, not to mention the value of the underlying asset sincreases %5-%15 anually on avg. I can get similar or better returns investing in sealed magic but with far less liquidity in the market and a minimum effort equal to a part-time job. Not to mention the space required to store the product! Your math is right and the principal is right but it certainly isn't for everyone. I think this video is much better for people who want to make serious income on sealed product and are willing to put a lot of time and effort into it. I choose high end RL singles for my magic investments because they take up no space and are something you can "purchase and forget" for a few years.
izalith 6 pretty reasonable response. I can sell 10k worth of Microsoft monday through friday any time. 10k worth of Yu-Gi-Oh! ? Could have to wait months or a year and the buyer could not get the item because of lost shipping package or I could get scammed by the buyer
Late May Rudy told me to come here. I’m a patron but I never buy anything but I invest in reserve list singles, I play duel commander and proxies are cringe. Your videos have helped me put myself on a path to better my overall life, especially my finances. I’m not 100% sure why.. somewhere between the crude humor and tremendous success investing in my favorite game on the planet. Thank you for the videos I hope you keep making em for a while
I friend of mine bought a Urzas Saga display like 20 years ago for 300 bucks to keep it. We all laughed at that time... He still has it and now he is laughing :D
Darn. I never bought battle for Zen cause I already have a Scalding Tarn expediton and was grabbing up the kaladesh artifacts. I got in of each of those. (I'm a small time collector).
Few people has this mindset these days. Peopl are getting rich from dirt. Yes its true. From the soil to cultivate to plant crops so that you can eat. The Land, the gravel, the brick, the cement out from off dirt to build shelter we called homes, communities, cities and civilization. Yes you can prosper from simple things just simply think :)
There's even very good chance that the very same dirt is a good source of Thorium, which is what is used in Thorium reactors, which seems likely to be one of the best candidates for energy production in the near future.
Thank you as always for your words sir. Truly an eye opening thing. Even on a small scale you look at a case of all four of those and you have some serious coin in your pocket. Thank you though. Love your videos.
Rudy I've been consuming a lot of your content, and reviewing all your predictions you were only 4 dollars off lol. crazy! you've got a great brain for this stuff.
Just paying for my patreon to keep this kind of content coming is worth it, the boxes are a great bonus though. I love learning this stuff in a way I can understand.
I used to do collectibles and toys and know people that still do however I don't have a lot of knowledge when it comes to the magic secondary market but the problem is selling your whole stock. If you don't have any connections which most people don't, your only way of selling it is through ebay. For those collectibles you can do conventions, local stores or even a yard sale if you are really desperate but can you do those with magic? So investing/selling in magic will likely become your 2nd job which is quite troublesome and there's a lot of things to account for like sometimes you need to liquidate fast which is impossible to do with magic.
Papa Rudy... can you discuss the ability to sell products... for example how easy is it to do a liquidity sweep with magic? For example can you sweep profits like you would on Wall Street? Have you factored in the cost of the aging in the 10%? Great video keep these coming please!
ChannelFireball is selling Ixalan for $89 in late 2019. It’s only going down... for now. I have a Dinosaur Commander Deck, so I love Ixalan (and Return to Ixalan), though I bought singles. But, those dinos might make a comeback...
I've spent almost 50 years in the collectable industry. I've seen trends in sports cards, comic books, CCG's... you name it, I've done it. When your mutual funds come with a disclaimer "past performance does not guarantee future performance" apply it here as well. Why are old comic books so expensive? 1. There was a lower print run and 2. people didn't take them off the shelf and put them directly into safe storage. In 1968-1972 my grandmother had a stack of comics at tall as my chest shared among 23 grandchildren. Those comics, some of which were iconic Swamp Thing, 60's Batman, JLA and Fantastic Four got totally destroyed through endless reading and carelessness. Fast forward to 1990 and the print run went to the moon and EVERYONE was aware of the prices of the old stuff and were saving mint copies of EVERYTHING!! those 1990's comics have appreciated at a FRACTION of the 60's comics (if at all). same thing is happening with MTG. People are saving sealed boxes and having cards PSA or SGC graded. they weren't doing that much 15 or 25 years ago. look at the set print runs. refer to the law of supply and demand.
You are forgetting the major factors of that while the boxes are no longer in print that there has to be someone willing to buy a box for a lot more than they were worth at launch. Not to mention that the competitive players are more than likely not going to test their luck on rares and mythics and are going around boxes to singles so the box has to have a reverse powercreep on commons and uncommons. Lastly, you still have to find a buyer for them and any reprints, powercreep, and rotations will remove markets for who's buying these boxes. You may still get the collector with those but more than likely you are going to be competing with other "Investment markets" to sell yours over someone else's So yes you can theoretically make $3,400 off of reselling 100 booster boxes but Ixalan is not going to be in standard come October. Hell, TCGPlayer vendors are already selling Ixalan at around 90 dollars. Come a month from now, you are merely selling to Legacy, Commander, and Modern all of which have an extremely high barrier of entry so new players aren't really going to be coming in unless they want to spend 1,000 on a bunch of broken cards just to be able to go 1-15. It's good for you to be enthusiastic about this stuff but you have to remember why people in finance say not to invest heavily on collectibles because the market is volatile and unlike certain publicly traded companies, WOTC is not obligated to make sure your unopened booster boxes appreciate because then it means they aren't selling enough new product while publicly traded companies are obligated to ensure some security
I started 'investing' at the end of revised. Bought out my 3 lgs and traveled within 4 hours of me buying out another 11 stores. Best choice I've ever made.
@@jovdam lol I only did it for the duals. The funny thing is what happened with alliances, mirage,visions etc. Having hundreds of lions eyes and fow. Pays to be an old man that doesn't throw shit away.
@@grymmgaming7035 The force is with you my friend - it certainly paid in this case! Be good and return some of the played duals back to the playerbase as Rudy is gobbling everything up and making everyone fear for their game!
I got a box of BFZ about a year ago for $60 and a cryptic command (Iconic Masters version, pack fresh, TCG mid $25). I opened it looking for a lottery card, no luck. Got all of the good rares and mythics though so only lost a little bit, and opening packs is always priceless, just ask open boosters!
my biggest concern is being able to sell. Who cares what the box is "worth" if only 10 are being bought/sold per year. I have no data on how many boxes of X product move in a given period of time.
Double Burger! Hey Rudy, I'm buying a box once in a while for "keeping"/investing/future draft, who knows! Am I a Timmy, if I only buy 1 box... I'm always looking for the cheapest price when I'm buying my box. So yesh, am I a Timmy? Love the video keep the positive attitude!
I think the main problem with people new to investing is that they think you only have to buy 1-2 boxes of one particular set, sit on it for 6 months and expect an easy 500% return. This video did an excellent job at showcasing that cost bases, acquisition routes, diversifying your position, time and scale - all play a vital role in proper investing, resulting in actual profit. Yes, there's always a chance that in X years these boxes will become worthless, but there's also a chance that in X years a meteor will flatten us all. Risk is part of the game and absolutely nothing in life is Guaranteed™.
I use the 'meteor falling from the sky' all the time in response to people worrying about trivial things that will prolly never happen.
At the moment all I can afford to do is have one box sealed sitting. But that's fine by me. When I get to the point where I can get more, I plan on it. This video is great proof that even having one sealed box is a solid ROI, if you're patient.
@@Cosper79 but you know that each year there are meteors falling down to earth neting ca. 100 tons?
"absolutely nothing"
Death.
Also very important to accept the worst case downside when you make your purchase or investment decision. Returns are great but sleeping at night is priceless. If they all go to 0 then I consider myself the proud owner of years worth of booster draft nights with my friends, and fun pack openings on TH-cam!
"YOU CANNOT PREDICT THE FUTURE UNLESS YOU HAVE THREE DELOREANS!"
That's what I've been telling my future self every yesterday.
Michael, I think if we could go back with all this foreknowledge we still wouldn't believe ourselves. I'm mean a modern game card that could be reprinted at any time valued into the tens of thousands of dollars?? It is too fantastic to consider. I still find it almost impossible to believe even now. A guy offered $50 for my friend's Black Lotus in March of 94 and we both thought he was crazy to want to pay so much for a card.
Rudy needs to share one of those Deloreans.
Papa Rudy teaching what should be taught in schools.
Finance
Economics
Growing wealth
Bewaring Timmy
Thank u papa rudy for learning me about magic oranges
"You can not predict the future" he says 2 years ago predicting perfectly the price of both BFZ and Ixalan. Seeing this is why I listen to "papa" rudy
xD 😆 100% value growth in this set as of 2021 lol
Once someone of reasonably high intellect knows enough about anything, they're generally able to reason out a range of probable future outcomes with relative accuracy because they see past the 1st, 2nd and 3rd order of consequences or beyond of the data they have with the knowledge they have. And when I say intelligent, I don't mean educated. I'm not sure of Rudy's education level, but if he has higher education, it's because he needed it to get his foot in the door in his previous career. He's intelligent in spite of his higher education if he has it and would have been successful regardless because of his intellect and work ethic.
3/2022... 2.5 years after this video and it has aged well. We have gone through a MTG value surge and now it is pulling back but damn.. everything in this video has held true. Even dumpster-fire Ixalan sealed boxes are at $160. There is a whole 1 card in the set that might fetch more than $20 but the sealed box continues to appreciate. Rudy, you are a got-damn genius.
200$ now
Im watching this on 3-12-21 and your expectations are literally spot on
"I don't know if it's next month, next year or 10 years..."
One Year Later....
I just discovered Rudy, thought he might be full of shit, watched this video... oh ok, Rudy knows wtf he's talking about
I knew he would call it correctly, I checked right now and listings are ranging from $115-$135
@@atlys258 Battle For Zendikar stagnating for 2 years now tho
Great.. now i'm gonna see Rudy's 'How to become a millionaire selling magic' course ads on youtube.
I’ve watched this at least 5 times in the last year. I’m going to have my kids watch this. They are 11 and 9. I want them to be this aware of reality.
I'm a sealed Magic investor, but there is a very real problem with it, especially dealing with newer sets. Yes, eventually the prices go up as available inventory dries up, and eventually it will become attractive to start moving your boxes after 5-6 years and your Dominaria boxes have reached $400... but then the 100s of other sealed investors see the opportunity as well, and they start trying to sell them too, but the market is simply too small for sealed Core 2019, GoR, Rivals, and even Dominaria. Then, as more product is suddenly available, the few dozen people who wanted it are satisfied, and to sell more you need to drop your prices, because you're also competing against all the other sellers too. So you must decide; drop to $350, or even $300, or wait for another year, or two, or three.
I'm just not sure that current or even Bronze Age MTG is going to ever be like holding Golden or Silver Age sealed boxes, now that there's a plan and so many are in on it. For instance, I did see Amonkhet boxes climb to $300 briefly, and then 20+ sellers came out of the woodwork and the price dove down to $240 after a half a dozen boxes sold. There's a lot out there, I personally have 16 cases, but I also own a shop and do sell them, both by the case and the pack, and I can just slowly move them. It's fine for me, but online it's a different situation, and the hold time to fully realize the returns you envision could (and likely will) be longer than you imagined. But hey, I could be wrong, I'll admit it.
If you list higher than everyone else, it might sit there longer, but you made more per unit than the people undercutting you.
The supply is finite and you hold a higher market share for everyone who sells early or cracks it.
The Eldritch Moon breakdown made every one of the 35 mins worth it
What is pushing Eldritch Moon so high? People just like it?
Great video, the only thing that would concern me about owning huge numbers of boxes is liquidating them though. It's not easy for the average person to be storing/liquidating hundreds of boxes. Shipping them out one by one or even a few at a time would be a hell of a lot of work on top of that. Can't argue with those gains though.
Same
At the 24 min mark he mentions no knowing the next recession, could be next month, next year... Rudydamus giving his predictions!
Cruel Summer 2022 TCGLow:
Ixalan - 166
BFZ - 250
Eldritch - 285
Orgins - 140
Not bad!
Thank you for the video Rudy. A good job showing a reasonable cost basis of $81. But how did you not factor in the risk free rate for years that have past? At 3% BFZ is actually an adjusted cost basis of $90-$95. Not everyone factors in the risk free rate, or an even higher borrowing rate, but you have to if you want actual costs and profits. A few real world corrections to just the Ixalan example that can be applied to most of the boxes discussed (full disclosure, I am in Corporate Finance and my license is active):
1) Booster boxes of Ixalan are all over Facebook for $80-85 right now. You only have to buy 1-2 to get that price.
2) Or if you use Card Kingdom's buylist, which is easy to find eBay cards for a profit, you get +30% and the booster box is $90 per. Let's round that to $70 before tax and shipping if applicable. Shipping is only $10 for me, but assuming further away might be $15... again, with store credit that is only $12... so $82 real world money if you use the buylist and less if you buy multiple boxes, as shipping per will decrease.
3) Boxes of Ixalan are up to $95 on eBay right now because of the 6% and 10% bonus eBay bucks that have been active over the past week or so. Meaning without these bonus bucks, the price should be around $85-$90 on eBay at best.
4) Also, unless you are shipping a ton at a time or have a corporate shipping account, most of us can't get out of shipping and fees for under $15... eBay alone is $10%, PayPal 3-4%, and shipping is $5-10. So costs for most people should be more like $20, not $10 lol.
5) Also, fees are usually a % and shipping will go up, and there is 3-4% inflation that should be factored in as money today is worth more than money in the future, so $10 for shipping and fees in 2-3 years is really stretching the truth. It would be more realistic to be $30 in fees and shipping for the Ixalan box.
6) Rudy is speaking from his perspective, not the 95% of sealed speculators/investors.
7) If you are a Patreon customer that purchases through Rudy, you have to factor in your monthly subscription into your base costs.
8) Investing in sealed product can be good, but you have to be realistic about it.
Love the topic,i wish to read some concrete and smart reply here and read a good discussion about all of this
@@7Alberto7 I really enjoy Rudy's content and love watching his videos. Some of the information he gives is very skewed from a financial perspective. I just hope viewers get informed before they invest/speculate on MTG.
@@vaderwashere365 me too that's why i hope to read more about your reply,also thank you for make this and let us have another point of view about this topic👍
Would be nice to see a quantitative analysis for yearly returns looking at all sets going back 5 (or more years). If you used your more realistic numbers, what would the rates of return for the 4 examples Rudy discussed actually be?
@@ChipHunter3 Yeah, I think you can def make close to the returns Rudy discusses, but you would have to get volume discounts at purchase and warehouse 100s of boxes from each set. So I wouldn't know storage costs as those vary widely by geography. Then you have to figure out how to slowly move 100s of boxes without flooding any of the marketplaces. Most of us might hold a few boxes or a case or two. Also, depends on how many you ship per sale... did some one buy a case from you with no price discount (highly unlikely)? So if shipping 1-2 boxes per sale, I don't think you make a profit on $81 Ixalan at release, that really costs you $90-95 at time of sale in 2021, unless you can get $115 per box without prices being skewed by a 6-10% ebay bucks promotion. With shipping and fees (~$15-20 per box), that is just above break even. That is only vanilla sets like Ixalan, you can make more profit if you would have preordered Ultimate Masters, Battlebond, Conspiracy 2, or a set doesn't sell well and gets popular (Innistrad) or something like that. That will bring up your average if investing similarly in every set. So still a good alternative investment, but hard to recommend an unregulated investment before you have protected investments. Even if you don't trust the government, they are semi-protected and probably a safer bet than WotC/Hasbro and the MTG marketplace.
Edit: I only buy a few boxes to a case of every set, because I actually draft with friends. I hardly get to draft more than a box or three of a set b/c of all the releases over the past 3 years. I have tried selling sealed product that I haven't been able to open from new-10 years old. I usually have to sell at eBay/TCGplayer prices less 10% to sell locally and avoid fees and shipping. It is almost easier to sell the newest release or two than a 3-7 year old booster box (more niche than Rudy talks about). I see tons of Facebook marketplace posts for older booster boxes at 10% below eBay/TCG prices that just get reposted over and over. Again, this is all a hobby for me, but it has been easier to collect, store and sell singles than sealed product to make the same profit %.
I buy magic product to play with my friends......weird I know
Patrick R what are friends?
So do I. But I also keep some of that shit sealed.
As do I, but I preserve the good pulls by using Proxies lol.
Your father wouldn’t approve of you playing such a demonic game
Great video. Only things I would change or add is: 1) build in 15% loss on avg on under 200 sales on ebay/paypal, 2) storage space and costs are not free... people really overlook the latter. Storing 100s or 1000s of boxes is no small feat, ask me how I know. Its not as bad as collector cars, but I would say harder than bullion. Again ask me how I know!
This, your mom isn't going to let you store 1000 magic boxes in your room because someone on TH-cam told you to invest in magic cards lol, for little kids who don't understand still...I bought shares of Ford the car company in college because it was cheap, it had a 8% dividend on it, I made all the money back I paid for the shares so they were "free" and I'm now making money on it, every 3 months I get money in my bank account just a few hundred bucks deposited
Thanks for taking the time to make these. Really appreciate it
Greetings from 2022 again, where Battle for Zendikar is $220 a box :)
Enjoying the vids, and I appreciate the uncensored content. Keep up the good work sir!
We are all at different points in life... And that's OK. Thanks dude, you made me shed a tear.
Always love the attention to detail on the backgrounds. Great video as always.
Hey Rudy! I’m really curious how you would expect the average seller with several hundred boxes to only lose around 10% in sales fees/shipping! If I sell on eBay... eBay takes 10% and PayPal takes 3%. And shipping costs there as well! I’ve found when I’m selling something I have to expect to lose closer to 15-20%!
Joseph Thrall high rated seller have different fees. For us common folk your right
i think the 10% loss is averaged between online sales and cash deals/other in person deals
“How to sell your patreon” featuring Clean Cut Rudy.
Current average pricing on Ixalan on Ebay is around $130, I'll check back next year.
thank you that is inspiring stuff! not only on a MTG-level, this is for life!
I love seeing Rudy standing in front of that white board. innocent like a math teacher
It's a shame these don't get the views. They are a master class.
I really like this video. The one thing I have to call out is Rudy’s estimate for “selling fees”. I don’t know of any online selling site that charges a flat selling fee. eBay is 10% plus 2.7% for payment processing. Same with TCGplayer. That $19 for a $150 box. Plus another $8-12 for shipping. These really cut into profit.
Literally addressed in the video with a qualifying statement a few times. In future try listening before you speak rather than just waiting for your turn to talk.
thedarkness125 Thanks for your $.02 10 months later buddy. I did watch the video and he barely mentioned it off hand. Rudy is well known for over/under stating numbers to fit his needs. Next time save yourself the trouble and don’t bother commenting.
Thanks for helping me make money. I keep goin further back in your videos and as you said in this one- "in 2021 Ixalan should be around 125." Well they're 140 lol.
MTG started going up when you opened your channel because you make people think it's an investment and they want to be like you and not a timmy..... My hat is off to you sir
So in all seriousness, how do you make the money to spend to buy new product? Are you slowly selling a small percentage of the older boxes saved up, years down the road? Are you just keeping it all and using another business (card shop?) to make all your investment purchases? What's your guiding principle for how much to sell, and when, to keep reinvesting?
"If you even still have friends, and a local game store." That shit hurts, and now that it's 2021 it hurts even more.
I can feel you. I have 2 LGS here. And 1 already didnt make it through covid.
I hope There are places to play magic when the pandemic is over...
Update from the future of February 2022, TCGPlayer prices. Jeez you pre 2020 people are in for some shit. But hey, that's the fun right.
Origins: 21 listings, $99.99
Eldritch: 25 listings, $169.99 (giggity. Note that only 4 boxes are for that price, then it jumps to 10 with the rest)
BFZ: 19 listings, $214.49
Ixalan: 22 listings, $149.99
I had bought a box of BFZ and Eldritch Moon for $80 from rudy. Doubled my money. Was nice. Maybe I should've waited and gotten more? Oh well. No shame in locking in profits right? Good luck everybody and stay the course.
Great video watched the whole thing really appreciate all the numbers being laid out to show the different sets returns over the course of years, somtimes its hard to picture the long long term
The haircut is a metaphor for bond investors' looming fate, as we approach 17 trillion USD in negative yielding debt worldwide.
If a person can afford it buy two boxes of each set. plus some single cards of each set as it comes .out singles to use, one box to save ,and one box to open half the packs out of
Lol dragon ball talk that is a completely inappropriate reply to the original comment
@@gatsu37 plus I can't type write
I'm a little timmy
Biden just said hold my beer brother lol
I understood the first video I watched with the ev and inflation of MTG ty for doing these videos
Papa RUDY
The only thing I invest in is Rudy videos.
Would be nice to see a quantitative analysis for yearly returns looking at all sets going back 5 (or more years). Any of you subs out there think you could do that?
It would be interesting to see that. How about a comparison of an avg Timmy buying one box per month for the past 5 years from an online shop or lgs VS the same purchasing via Rudy patreon? The avg Timmy wont or cannot join the patreon.
@@cpnhowdy Isnt the patreon like $240 a year? and if you buy boxes, its even more?
@@Scorch428 Lowest is 180/year. I would think of the patreon sub like a call option. It gives you the right to buy up to 6 boxes at 79.99 each/per month. It would not make much sense to spend that much per month if you have no intention in buying at least one box a month.
@@cpnhowdy But i mean...is it really cheaper if you have 180 a year overhead? Seems like youd have to buy a ton of product to beat the rake
@@Scorch428 Ya I agree. The patreon sub is for those who are committed to buying quite a few each and every month. The sub mostly likely gives you access to sets that are not available through other sites at the 79.99 price too so that is a plus. Im not located in the US otherwise I would do it.
Hey Rudy,
I was lucky to get a single piece of power - a mox ruby. I have had it for over a year now and it’s increased in price quite a bit. I traded my storm legacy deck for it, and only did so because no one played legacy at the LGS’s I went to.
However, I recently moved. I lost all of my casual fun decks bc of UPS and I’m still going through the claims process. Luckily I kept my lottery cards/reserved list/power with me at all times. I was very upset and nearly let go of my collection because of silly emotions. I got lucky again when I stopped myself from selling out. I started watching your vids again and it helped me keep my head in the game for the long term. I hope to get married in a few years, and I hope my power/reserved list portfolio will help with a ring hahaha. I don’t plan on investing or speculating on cards, but I’m happy your advice and guidance kept me from making a mistake.
Jan 2022 here. Ixalan is $150 a box. I'm such a timmy
I'm a simple person, I see Papa Rudy and I commit. Very informative general idea.
Its 2022 and I found this video because of some questions and searching. I got into Magic again back in the Avacyn Restored block. I was buying boxes of AR at my LGS for around $120 a box. EIGHT years later and the cheapest I can find is around $788!!!! Insane!!! I wish I had bought so many more.
This is amazing! This video also helps drive home to those of us who buy a box or two... there is great % growth but the actual cash in hand is low.
Greetings from 2022 where Ixalan is $160 a box :)
Yo rudy thanks so much for this investing advice, I see why rich people get richer. My favorite quote from all this is "Money is trash."
Rudy "Actually, it should be less, but we're gonna round it to an EVEN 81"
Great Clips official sponsor of Beta Investments.
Just gonna point out that for ixalan you forgot the 10 dollar transaction fee.
So it's 8/yr not 11, or just under 10%
with the proper math it still would have been 7-9%
The problem with this is that investing in liquid markets is so much less time and effort consuming than investing in sealed product. My dividend income portfolio takes about 1 hr of my time a week, yields %6.63 anually, not to mention the value of the underlying asset sincreases %5-%15 anually on avg. I can get similar or better returns investing in sealed magic but with far less liquidity in the market and a minimum effort equal to a part-time job. Not to mention the space required to store the product! Your math is right and the principal is right but it certainly isn't for everyone. I think this video is much better for people who want to make serious income on sealed product and are willing to put a lot of time and effort into it. I choose high end RL singles for my magic investments because they take up no space and are something you can "purchase and forget" for a few years.
izalith 6 pretty reasonable response. I can sell 10k worth of Microsoft monday through friday any time. 10k worth of Yu-Gi-Oh! ? Could have to wait months or a year and the buyer could not get the item because of lost shipping package or I could get scammed by the buyer
Late May Rudy told me to come here. I’m a patron but I never buy anything but I invest in reserve list singles, I play duel commander and proxies are cringe. Your videos have helped me put myself on a path to better my overall life, especially my finances. I’m not 100% sure why.. somewhere between the crude humor and tremendous success investing in my favorite game on the planet. Thank you for the videos I hope you keep making em for a while
I friend of mine bought a Urzas Saga display like 20 years ago for 300 bucks to keep it. We all laughed at that time... He still has it and now he is laughing :D
Another great video. Framing looks a lot better, well done!
Rudy: You're a patron! You're paying 81 shipped!
Me, in Europe: ... I really like his hat in his profile pic
would love to see a 3 year update on these sets
Darn. I never bought battle for Zen cause I already have a Scalding Tarn expediton and was grabbing up the kaladesh artifacts. I got in of each of those. (I'm a small time collector).
Few people has this mindset these days.
Peopl are getting rich from dirt.
Yes its true.
From the soil to cultivate to plant crops so that you can eat.
The Land, the gravel, the brick, the cement out from off dirt to build shelter we called homes, communities, cities and civilization.
Yes you can prosper from simple things just simply think :)
There's even very good chance that the very same dirt is a good source of Thorium, which is what is used in Thorium reactors, which seems likely to be one of the best candidates for energy production in the near future.
Thank you as always for your words sir. Truly an eye opening thing. Even on a small scale you look at a case of all four of those and you have some serious coin in your pocket. Thank you though. Love your videos.
Rudy I've been consuming a lot of your content, and reviewing all your predictions you were only 4 dollars off lol. crazy! you've got a great brain for this stuff.
Here I am in 2021, impressed with Rudy's prediction of the Ixalan price. Rudy's price: 115, Card Kingdom price: 119.99
1/18/2021: One of the completed/sold listings did sell at $114.98 but it looks like its anywhere from $99 -> $109.99 for Ixalan.
Just watched the smartest investment video ever and I’ve never even touched a magic card.
This guys actually really smart. I'm learning stuff from this guy. Incredible.
He talks to the camera as if its a zoom call. That is an amazing talent
Woah woah woah....
I've never seen clean cut Rudy before. A new charcter to the Rudy-verse
Just paying for my patreon to keep this kind of content coming is worth it, the boxes are a great bonus though. I love learning this stuff in a way I can understand.
I used to do collectibles and toys and know people that still do however I don't have a lot of knowledge when it comes to the magic secondary market but the problem is selling your whole stock. If you don't have any connections which most people don't, your only way of selling it is through ebay. For those collectibles you can do conventions, local stores or even a yard sale if you are really desperate but can you do those with magic? So investing/selling in magic will likely become your 2nd job which is quite troublesome and there's a lot of things to account for like sometimes you need to liquidate fast which is impossible to do with magic.
Papa Rudy... can you discuss the ability to sell products... for example how easy is it to do a liquidity sweep with magic? For example can you sweep profits like you would on Wall Street? Have you factored in the cost of the aging in the 10%? Great video keep these coming please!
33:43 - Hahaha - Reminds me of the South Park Chewbacca defence !
ChannelFireball is selling Ixalan for $89 in late 2019. It’s only going down... for now. I have a Dinosaur Commander Deck, so I love Ixalan (and Return to Ixalan), though I bought singles. But, those dinos might make a comeback...
Awesome video, Rudy! This is why I'm a patron!
I put all my money in Fallen Empires and Homelands. Now I just need to sit back and watch the money roll in.
John Summers 😂
And then it happened...
God I love these F omg videos. Please don’t stop making these for us financial geeks. I love finance
I've spent almost 50 years in the collectable industry. I've seen trends in sports cards, comic books, CCG's... you name it, I've done it. When your mutual funds come with a disclaimer "past performance does not guarantee future performance" apply it here as well. Why are old comic books so expensive?
1. There was a lower print run and 2. people didn't take them off the shelf and put them directly into safe storage. In 1968-1972 my grandmother had a stack of comics at tall as my chest shared among 23 grandchildren. Those comics, some of which were iconic Swamp Thing, 60's Batman, JLA and Fantastic Four got totally destroyed through endless reading and carelessness. Fast forward to 1990 and the print run went to the moon and EVERYONE was aware of the prices of the old stuff and were saving mint copies of EVERYTHING!!
those 1990's comics have appreciated at a FRACTION of the 60's comics (if at all). same thing is happening with MTG. People are saving sealed boxes and having cards PSA or SGC graded. they weren't doing that much 15 or 25 years ago. look at the set print runs. refer to the law of supply and demand.
This guy knows what's up. Fantastic lesson. :D !
Another fantastic investing video!! keep them up. Now we have MTG and Real Estate covered!! Next topic!!
Need to see Rudy's investment streams!!
I'd put myself tens of thousands of dollars in debt to go to Rudyfina University. This was a great lesson.
I absolutely love that you are doing these.
Creepy Rudy, love these types of videos. Please keep making more of these. Great insights on the world of (financial) Magic.
You are forgetting the major factors of that while the boxes are no longer in print that there has to be someone willing to buy a box for a lot more than they were worth at launch. Not to mention that the competitive players are more than likely not going to test their luck on rares and mythics and are going around boxes to singles so the box has to have a reverse powercreep on commons and uncommons. Lastly, you still have to find a buyer for them and any reprints, powercreep, and rotations will remove markets for who's buying these boxes. You may still get the collector with those but more than likely you are going to be competing with other "Investment markets" to sell yours over someone else's
So yes you can theoretically make $3,400 off of reselling 100 booster boxes but Ixalan is not going to be in standard come October. Hell, TCGPlayer vendors are already selling Ixalan at around 90 dollars. Come a month from now, you are merely selling to Legacy, Commander, and Modern all of which have an extremely high barrier of entry so new players aren't really going to be coming in unless they want to spend 1,000 on a bunch of broken cards just to be able to go 1-15.
It's good for you to be enthusiastic about this stuff but you have to remember why people in finance say not to invest heavily on collectibles because the market is volatile and unlike certain publicly traded companies, WOTC is not obligated to make sure your unopened booster boxes appreciate because then it means they aren't selling enough new product while publicly traded companies are obligated to ensure some security
This was probably the most intelligent answer from someone who is actually knowledgeable in the game.
I recently started buying mtg as an investment. Thanks for this video!
awesome video, also great new mic sounds alot better!
I love this videos, they are super fun to watch and I even learn things.
just called my lgs to buy 20 boxes of coreset 2020. Apparently, they wont sell. Thanks to you Rudy. lol
lol Local Hoarding Store
@@fsmoura hahaha! Yes that's it!
Dear Rudi, you should make an updated video, since 3 years passed now. Thanks for your analysis.
Rudy: "Buy from me to 'invest' but never try to sell"
I started 'investing' at the end of revised. Bought out my 3 lgs and traveled within 4 hours of me buying out another 11 stores. Best choice I've ever made.
shit. you're that guy we're all kicking ourselves we should've been..
@@jovdam lol I only did it for the duals. The funny thing is what happened with alliances, mirage,visions etc. Having hundreds of lions eyes and fow. Pays to be an old man that doesn't throw shit away.
@@grymmgaming7035 The force is with you my friend - it certainly paid in this case! Be good and return some of the played duals back to the playerbase as Rudy is gobbling everything up and making everyone fear for their game!
I miss these videos
I got a box of BFZ about a year ago for $60 and a cryptic command (Iconic Masters version, pack fresh, TCG mid $25). I opened it looking for a lottery card, no luck. Got all of the good rares and mythics though so only lost a little bit, and opening packs is always priceless, just ask open boosters!
Rudy you are the man! KEEP MAKING THESE VIDEOS!!!
Can you do these calculations based off of compound interest give it a more reasonable comparison to an investment in a stock.
Awesome video. But the old adage that you gave to have money to make money really applies here.
Rudy looking like he is getting in shape
I always watch your videos to the end,
Papa Rudy.
Thanks for teaching us about the "theory of relatevely" Rudy!
still gotta sell it. average person cant unload hundreds of boxes easily at full price. and stores isn't going to pay near full price for them.
"If you aren't willing to hold on to it for ten years, you shouldn't hold on to it for 10 minutes."- Warren Buffet
my biggest concern is being able to sell. Who cares what the box is "worth" if only 10 are being bought/sold per year. I have no data on how many boxes of X product move in a given period of time.
yeah, i dont see many ppl buying eldritch moon and bfz at that price...not til ev catches up anyway....
Check ebay sold list and you can see how much and at what price they have sold for in the last couple months.
Double Burger!
Hey Rudy, I'm buying a box once in a while for "keeping"/investing/future draft, who knows!
Am I a Timmy, if I only buy 1 box... I'm always looking for the cheapest price when I'm buying my box. So yesh, am I a Timmy?
Love the video keep the positive attitude!